Stock Island Eats

I have a confession to make: I turned a corner last week and discovered a change in myself of which I am not proud. Key West is finally starting to rub off on me and not in a  good way. I used to make fun of people who couldn't be bothered to drive five miles across Key West saying it was too far. My wife once had a classroom aide in her school on Stock Island who quit the job a few weeks in as it was "too far" to drive across Key West  every day.To commute four miles for a road trip hound like me is nothing. I enjoy my 25-mile commute...and I was always critical of stores that needed two outlets to serve this small town. Fausto's the grocery has one on Fleming near Duval for Old Town residents, and another a mile away on White Street to serve New Town....Absurd I'm sure you'll agree.

What happened was Chuck and Wayne decided we were overdue dinner together so they asked my wife and I to choose a place to meet. I had been missing Cuban food at El Siboney lately and I suggested that to my wife who enthusiastically agreed. She was surprised when I explained I meant the new place, a few months old, on Stock Island. No need to drive "all the way" to the original location on Catherine Street. I caught myself: "all the way?" I was sounding like some homeboy afraid to leave his neighborhood.  But the truth is, driving to town from the Lower Keys where we all live was too far. We didn't want to deal with the traffic and all that parking nonsense in Old Town. I have joined the ranks of the absurdist population of these small specks of land.

 Dinner was fine and fortunately the former Rusty Anchor makes an excellent venue, clean spacious and quiet compared to the hustle and jostle of the tile floored original El Siboney, all noise and garish lights and loud staff. So now I have an excuse never to eat on Catherine Street again.

Then I had to take my wife to the airport for a flight to a conference and we rounded out a Stock Island visit at Roostica for a pre-flight lunch. I had a ridiculous sausage egg and cheese sandwich in best Italian-American style while my wife had more genteel eggs Benedict.

Stock Island is moving up in the world. Pretty soon we won't need to go to the metropolis of Key West and all that traffic and parking and crowding...I need to get out more.

Escape Spring Break

I hate to sound like an old fogey but I remember when Spring Break changed the way Key West operated for about six weeks. It was an exhausting time in the Key West police department with all hands on deck, no leave and night after night of regular shifts or overtime. Young people came drank, got overheated, passed out vomited and fought. It was six weeks of hell and high wages..

These days hotel rooms are too vastly expensive for young people or their parents to front and hotels themselves see little value in upsetting all their other high paying guests by inviting in rowdy youngsters. Its a tough call in a  town where tourism is down 20 percent (they say) and  you might suppose drunk horny teenagers might help fill the gap. Instead it seems the trend  at Spring Break has moved away from paradise in the Keys to other luckier destinations.  I am okay with that, not least because there are still enough spring breakers to fill the beach and to spend some money and cause a  little police work late at night and keep us on our toes.

So when I left Key West after exercise Friday I stopped on the way home on a whim. Actually I stopped twice, the first time to get a fizzy caffeinated drink on Stock Island and then ten miles later I stopped the scooter just off the bike path at a funky little roadside gazebo near Bluewater RV park.

The traffic kept rolling  but I was stationary, in the sun, out of the wind for a few minutes. No one knew where I was or what I was doing nor why I was doing it. Not even my dog.  There were no pedestrians or cyclists and the cars streaming by in the 55 mph zone had occupants too busy to notice me off to the side in the bushes.

It didn't last. I got home, a 20 minute ride away.  Rusty looked up and plopped back down. I went upstairs to shower off the dried sweat of exercise.

There are no Spring Breakers on my street. I hardly know why I needed to stop but I'm glad I did.

West Summerland Key

I am acutely aware of the next hurricane season which starts in a couple of months.

West Summerland Key, near Bahia Honda is still wrecked of course from Hurricane Irma.

I still miss the lush greenery from years past, seen here with Cheyenne enjoy the shade.

The stumps of the trees are sprouting leaves in a pathetic way.

As it was:

As it is since last September:

Next to the Seven Mile Bridge we have Veterans Memorial Park. As was:

As is:

The park is closed but I saw some people frolicing in the waters of the park last week.Good for them.

Things

The obsession Key West suffers from with its wild chickens seems to me could be represented better by this flag than the Conch Republic standard:

 I was fascinated by this lump of iron lurking in a  flowerbed:

 Another Hallmark Holiday came and went:

 I have no idea what this thing is. It came from pennsylvania I think and was nicely built though whether a camper a workshop or a shed I couldn't tell. It lacked some key West quirk in its decoration or lack thereof.

 Yesm, bananas grow and ripen in the wild in Key West. Don't pick them even if they hang over the street.

 Chickens galore.

Water Scenes

Around Southard

The old Harris School on Southard Street is always photogenic.

 There were plans to make it an artist's colony but the school board failed to close the sale and actually the not for profit that wanted to buy it went under in the Bernie Madoff scandal.

 Generations of young children in Key West passed through these classrooms and now the property supposedly up for development was ion the market for 17 million dollars. 

Free parking:

It has been a strange winter with lots of cold days and a sudden late cold spell in March.

Cold crisp sunny days. In March. Odd.

This is how winter should be. I was talking to a long time employee at the police department, a civilian who has worked for the city for 50 years, working to keep her health insurance until she can retire. "I've never seen snow," she said and she never wants to. I sympathize.

The library garden above on Fleming Street. Outside the library a camouflaged chicken below:

My walking partner, at rest:

Often he prefers his scrunched up bed to stretching out on the couch or with alongside me. Odd dog.